Category Archives: Plastics

Major Plastic Polluters Win as UN Treaty Talks Conclude Without Agreement

“Every day that governments allow polluters to continue flooding the world with plastic, we all pay the price,” said one campaigner.

By Jon Queally. Published 12-1-2024 by Common Dreams

*A bale of crushed PET drink bottles at a recycling facility in San Jose, California Photo: Grendelkhan/Wikimedia Commons/CC*

Environmental groups on Sunday decried the conclusion of a United Nations summit designed to secure an international treaty to combat plastic pollution after powerful oil- and gas-producing nations refused to agree to production limits and other more aggressive measures to curb pollution.

Failure to reach an agreement means the talks—known as the INC-5 round that took place in Busan, South Korea—will be extended to another round, but campaigners said the sabotage of a far-reaching treaty by fossil fuel interests is wasting precious time that the world’s ecosystems, wildlife, and people can no longer afford.

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Ahead of Plastics Treaty Talks, Millions Demand Production Cuts

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“This plastic crisis is rooted in the overproduction of single-use plastics, building for us and future generations a very toxic legacy,” said one Indonesian youth activist.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-24-2024 by Common Dreams

Ahead of the fifth and final round of negotiations for a global plastics treaty in Busan, South Korea, people took to the streets to demand meaningful action from world leaders. Photo: #BreakFreeFromPlastic/X

With the fifth and final round of global plastics treaty negotiations set to begin Monday in Busan, South Korea, an estimated 1,500 people took to the city’s streets and nearly 3 million more signed a petition calling for a legally binding pact “to drastically reduce production and use, and protect human health and the environment.”

The Saturday march at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center was led by the global Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) movement and local allies from the Uproot Plastics Coalition. They want the treaty to include targets to slash production.

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US Plastics Industry Dumps Almost Half a Billion Gallons of Wastewater Daily

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“Plastics plants are poisoning our waters and contaminating our bodies—and EPA needs to do its job and protect our waterways and downstream communities,” said one watchdog leader.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-14-2024 by Common Dreams

The Merrimack River in Manchester New Hampshire. Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and Nylon Corp. of America settled a lawsuit concerning Clean Water Act violations at the company’s Manchester manufacturing facility in 2023. Photo: Captain-tucker/CC

Amid fears over President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a government watchdog on Thursday called out the EPA for letting the plastics industry pollute U.S. waterways with about half a billion gallons of wastewater every day.

The new report—Plastic’s Toxic River: EPA’s Failure to Regulate the Petrochemical Plants That Make Plastic—is based on an Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) analysis of records for “70 petrochemical plants that manufacture the most common plastics and their primary chemical ingredients and discharge wastewater directly into rivers, lakes, and other water bodies.”

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Study Warns of ‘Irreversible Impacts’ From Overshooting 1.5°C, Even Temporarily

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“Only by doing much more in this critical decade to bring emissions down and peak temperatures as low as possible, can we effectively limit damages.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 10-9-2024 by Common Dreams

*One prediction of where rising sea levels will end up at Cottesloe Beach, Perth Western Australia.. Photo: go_greener_oz/flickr/CC*

Just over a month away from the next United Nations climate summit, a study out Wednesday warns that heating the planet beyond a key temperature threshold of the Paris agreement—even temporarily—could cause “irreversible impacts.”

The 2015 agreement aims to limit global temperature rise this century to 1.5ºC, relative to preindustrial levels.

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Federal Judge Gives Louisiana Polluters a ‘Free Pass’ to Harm Communities of Color

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“Louisiana has given industrial polluters open license to poison Black and brown communities for generations,” and the new ruling from a Trump-appointed judge will only magnify the problem, a campaigner said.

By Edward Carver. Published 8-23-2024 by Common Dreams

*Cancer Alley. Photo: Gines A. Sanchez/flickr/CC*

A right-wing federal judge in Louisiana on Thursday permanently blocked two federal agencies from enforcing civil rights legislation that could protect Black communities from disproportionate pollution in the state, drawing condemnation from environmental justice advocates.

The two-page ruling, issued by U.S. District Court Judge James Cain, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, is a setback in the push for accountability for corporate polluters, most notably in “Cancer Alley,” a roughly 85-mile stretch that runs along the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans.

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‘Gift to Corporate Greed’: Dire Warnings as Supreme Court Scraps Chevron Doctrine

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“Make no mistake—more people will get sick, injured, or die as a result of today’s decision,” said one advocate.

By Jake Johnson. Published 6-28-2024 by Common Dreams

*The Supreme Court. Photo: Public Domain*

The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority delivered corporate polluters, anti-abortion campaigners, and other right-wing interests a major victory Friday by overturning the so-called Chevron doctrine, a deeply engrained legal precedent whose demise could spell disaster for public health and the climate.

The high court’s 6-3 ruling along ideological lines in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce significantly constrains the regulatory authority of federal agencies tasked with crafting rules on a range of critical matters, from worker protection to the climate to drug safety.

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UN Chief Calls for Global Ban on Fossil Fuel Advertising

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“There is no longer any cover for agencies to say that they are doing the right thing when working with polluters,” said one campaigner. “Everyone knows this is wrong, and everyone needs to act.”

By Julia Conley. Published 6-5-2024 by Common Dreams

*Over 100,000 marched in Vancouver in solidarity with the youth of the world in the September 27, 2019 Climate Strike.. Photo::Chris Yakimov/flickr/CC*

Despite the grim news that scientists on Wednesday reported last month as the hottest May on record globally, marking 12 straight months with record-breaking heat, climate advocates expressed optimism after United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres signaled what one called a “game-changing intervention,” urging governments to ban advertisements by fossil fuel firms.

The demand is in line with prohibitions on advertising for other “products that harm human health—like tobacco,” said Guterres.

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Youth Lead Global Strike Demanding ‘Climate Justice Now’

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“We are many people and youths who want to express our frustration over what decision-makers are doing right now: They don’t care about our future and aren’t doing anything to stop the climate crisis,” one young activist said.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 4-19-2024 by Common Dreams

*Climate strikers march in Stockholm, Sweden, on April 19, 2024. (Photo: Albin Haglund via Greta Thunberg/X)*

Ahead of Earth Day, young people around the world are participating in a global strike on Friday to demand “climate justice now.”

In Sweden, Greta Thunberg joined hundreds of other demonstrators for a march in Stockholm; in Kenya, participants demanded that their government join the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty; and in the U.S., youth activists are kicking off more than 200 Earth Day protests directed at pressing President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency.

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‘Bombshell’ Memo Shows Open Chemical Burn in East Palestine Violated EPA Rules

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“It’s inconceivable that there wouldn’t have been someone from the enforcement office, or general counsel, saying, ‘Oh, Norfolk Southern wants to do an uncontrolled burn—that’s illegal, you cannot do that,” said a former EPA official.

By Julia Conley. Published 3-7-2024 by Common Dreams

*NTSB photograph of the 2023 Ohio train derailment. Photo: NTSB/Public domain*

A day after the head of the National Transportation Safety Board told Congress that the deliberate burning of toxic chemicals in five crashed train cars in East Palestine, Ohio last year was unnecessary, a former Environmental Protection Agency official said the so-called “controlled burn” also likely went against EPA regulations.

Kevin Garrahan, who worked for the agency for 40 years and focused on environmental risk assessment and hazardous waste cleanup, told HuffPost that soon after a Norfolk Southern train derailed in the town of 4,700 people, he alerted a former EPA colleague to a 2022 memo on the open burning and open detonation of waste explosives.

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‘Death Sentence’: Reports Call for End to Big Oil’s US Sacrifice Zones

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“People’s lives and the environment are being devastated at the hands of big business,” one human rights researcher said.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 1-25-2024 by Common Dreams

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both published reports on Thursday detailing how the fossil fuel industry has harmed the health and environment of communities in Texas and Louisiana, and how state and federal regulators have failed to protect them.

The Amnesty report, The Cost of Doing Business? The Petrochemical Industry’s Toxic Pollution in the USA, focused on the Houston Ship Channel, which has some of the worst air pollution measurements in the U.S. The HRW report, “We’re Dying Here”: The Fight for Life in a Louisiana Fossil Fuel Sacrifice Zone, looked at the state’s Cancer Alley, an 85-mile zone along the Mississippi that reportedly has the highest concentration of fossil fuel and petrochemical plants in the Western Hemisphere.

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Occupy World Writes

The Movement Continues – Globally

Category Archives: Plastics

Federal Judge Gives Louisiana Polluters a ‘Free Pass’ to Harm Communities of Color

“Louisiana has given industrial polluters open license to poison Black and brown communities for generations,” and the new ruling from a Trump-appointed judge will only magnify the problem, a campaigner said.

‘Gift to Corporate Greed’: Dire Warnings as Supreme Court Scraps Chevron Doctrine

“Make no mistake—more people will get sick, injured, or die as a result of today’s decision,” said one advocate.